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Monday, November 4, 2013

"It was a beautiful way to end the festival"

From Alison Fensterstock's wonderful review of The Cure at Voodoo: "Speaking of Trent Reznor, who stood on the Voodoo mainstage Saturday night,
there is, of course, a great overlap between the armies of darkness who
ally themselves with Nine Inch Nails and with the Cure. (“If you had
told me, in 1996, that I’d get to see Nine Inch Nails and the Cure in
the same 48-hour period, I’d have flipped out,” one of those elusive
goths of days gone by said to me at the festival.)

But where NIN
can be hard and cold, the Cure’s misery – even at its darkest depths –
is a sweet, soft one. When Trent makes you hurt, it’s with the bite of
cold, industrial jaws; Robert Smith's hurt is exquisite. There is no
love left in Nine Inch Nails’ world, but for Smith, love is all there is
– even if all that’s left of it is delicious pain. Part of it was
lights and fog, but the mainstage Sunday night also swirled with aching
passion. It was a beautiful way to end the festival, and even Smith
seemed overwrought: after a final encore of “Boys Don’t Cry,” he
clutched his powdered cheek, blinked, and scampered off, as if he’d been
caught with his heart on his sleeve."